Go to market, volume 1: The strategies I think are worth understanding

Everyone talks about go-to-market. Few can explain what it is.

The simple version: GTM answers one question. How does a stranger go from "doesn't know you exist" to "pays you every month"?

The problem is that the word means different things to different people. One means the plan for launching a new feature. Another means the whole business strategy. A third means the sales machine itself. So when someone says "we need a GTM strategy", you rarely know what they're missing. Often it's an ordinary marketing plan with a fancier name.

But something has happened in the past few years. AI has redrawn how GTM is built. Here are four strategies that matter in 2026, and what they mean for you if you don't have a fifty-person team.

1. Warm outbound has replaced cold spray

The old model: buy a list, blast cold emails, hope. It works worse and worse. The inbox is full, and every email sounds the same now that everyone uses the same AI to write them.

The new thing is called signal-based outbound. You find buyers who are already showing signs of being in the market. Fresh funding. A role they're hiring for. A tool they just switched to. Then you reach out with something relevant to exactly that.

In the latest industry outlooks, intent-based outbound is ranked as one of the channels B2B is investing most heavily in for 2026.

The point: outbound isn't dead. Dumb outbound is dead. Right person, right moment, right reason.

2. AI agents handle reach, humans handle trust

AI salespeople, so-called AI SDRs, have gone mainstream. They do research, prioritise accounts and send the first outreach at a scale no human can match.

But there's a catch. Fully automated sequences with no human check produce worse meetings. When the agent handles everything, quality drops.

The pattern winning in 2026: agents for reach, humans for trust. Let AI do the tedious, large-scale part. Let a human handle the qualification, the difficult conversations and the relationship.

The point: automate to reach more people, not to avoid being human where it counts.

3. The marketer has become an engineer

A new role is growing fast: GTM engineer. The person who builds the machine itself. Connecting CRM, signals, data and AI agents into a system that works around the clock.

It sounds technical, and it is. But you don't need a PhD. With today's tools, a sharp marketer can build flows that used to require a whole team.

The trend points one way: fewer but more deeply integrated tools. Teams with twelve scattered tools perform worse than teams with four that talk to each other.

The point: the line between "marketing" and "systems" has almost disappeared. Whoever can build wins time.

4. Showing up in AI is the new SEO

People google less. They ask ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity instead. And then they get one answer, not ten blue links.

That's giving rise to a new channel: becoming the answer the AI gives. Some call it AEO, answer engine optimization. Others call it LLM visibility.

The question is no longer just whether you rank on Google. The question is whether you get mentioned when someone asks an AI about your category.

The point: if the model never mentions you, you don't exist for the buyers who've stopped googling. Start monitoring what AI says about your category now.

What hasn't changed

New technology, same truth underneath.

Signal-based outbound works because you meet the buyer when she's already interested. AI agents work because they take on the tedious part, not the human part. AEO works because you show up where the buyer is looking.

All four rest on the same old thing: meet the buyer where she is, and make decisions the way she does.

The tools in 2026 are new. The principle is stone age. Build your GTM around how your buyer behaves, not around whichever playbook is trendy this month.